A local youth baseball coach took the witness stand yesterday, desperately defending himself… A local youth baseball coach took the witness stand yesterday, desperately defending himself against accusations of bribing a young team member to physically injure an autistic teammate.

Mark Downs Jr., 29, of Dunbar, Pa., is charged with two counts of criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, corruption of minors, conspiracy to commit simple assault and reckless endangerment. The allegations specify that in June 2005, Downs offered now-9-year-old team member Keith Reese Jr. $25 to throw a baseball at Harry Bowers, 11, a fellow team member who suffers from acute autism and mild retardation. The incident occurred just before a key playoff game in which Bowers would have been required to play.

As shocking and sad as these allegations are, what might be even scarier is that they are neither particularly new nor surprising. We’ve all experienced it: the overly concerned parent or coach. And whether we’ve been at the receiving end of insults or only a witness to the harassment of others, it always hurts, and it is always wrong.

Over the past decade, youth sports have morphed from harmless fun into hardcore, Olympic-style competition.

What happened to the age-old idea that it’s not about winning or losing, but about how you play the game? Apparently those notions are dropped at the door once children enter the realm of elementary-aged youth sports. What’s sad is that youth sports have so many potential positives that are overshadowed by parents’ unrelenting need to win. Parents are now more concerned with vicariously mending their own broken dreams through their children than actually teaching the youth of America about teamwork and sportsmanship.

We understand the burning desire to take that 3-foot-tall Little League trophy home to rest on your 48-inch HDTV, but come on, parents, how much is too much?

Youth sports are about engaging children, teaching them something new and allowing them to interact with their peers (not to mention helping to lower the childhood obesity rate). The intense pressure that parents and coaches are now putting on children to perform is causing many kids to hate their sport of choice, and in many cases to quit.

Rather than striving to mend this social ill, the American media feeds into it, taking youth sports to the national level. ESPN has recently turned to televising the national Little League baseball championships. The program often zooms cameras in on young players like they would professionals, trying to catch them in periods of understandable emotion.

We are creating a culture where playing youth sports is no longer about engaging with peers or about learning a new activity, but about grooming the future of American professional athletes. In the past, sports did not generally reach the “competitive” level until at least middle school. Now specially formed travel and tournament teams are recruiting the top athletes at a much younger age.

At the rate we are going, our children might have to attend a “try out” to play for their kindergarten T-ball team. The obsessive pressure that parents put on their children to excel in sports is ridiculous and needs to stop. Winning should never be the top priority for children, and our only hope is that Downs takes the accusations against him very seriously.